A donation celebrated the memory of a 97-year-old volunteer. Someone stole it

Joanna "Jo" Ach could have been a character in one of the books she loved.

Born in 1925, she was bought up in the midst of the Great Depression, the daughter of an Indiana farmer. She earned a degree in chemistry in 1947 and later studied biochemistry at the University of Cincinnati.

She worked on a cure for gangrene, survived polio, traveled the world and cared for her husband, Dr. F. Jay Ach, in his last years.

Jo Ach died in July. She was 97. During the last 20 years of her life, she was a dedicated volunteer for the nonprofit Friends of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.

And what happened last week would have made her so mad.

On the morning of Oct. 25, it was discovered that the Friends' Used Bookstore on Vine Street in Hartwell had been burglarized.

Someone had forced open a door at the building belonging to the longstanding nonprofit that supports summer reading programs for kids, book events in the city as well as the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. The building houses the bookstore and the nonprofit's offices.

The books apparently went untouched, but about $500 in cash was taken. And it wasn't just money from the till. It was money given to the nonprofit as a memorial for Ach.

Alexia Loyanich, the executive director at the nonprofit, said Ach was at the Hartwell store at least three days a week sorting and selling books for the past 20 years.

"That really hurt my heart," Loyanich said. "I could just hear her, how mad she would be. Why would anybody try to burgle a nonprofit?"

Though her death was in July, a memorial service was held for Ach in mid-October. In her obituary, her family asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Friends.

"It would have just made her more determined to get more people in here to buy more books," Loyanich said. "She was an unstoppable force."

She recalled when Ach tore a rotator cuff at the age of 92, and just kept coming in to sort and price books.

"She was so stubborn and strong-willed that she convinced a doctor to fix it," she said. "Most doctors said she was too old. They didn't want to risk it, and she didn't take that for an answer."

Eventually, she got the surgery and a week or so later was right back at the bookstore weaving through the boxes on her cane, a relic from her battle with polio.

'She ruled that corner with an iron fist'

"She looked like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, yet when people messed up her boxes she would very politely but firmly let them know how many hours she spent organizing everything and that they really needed to go back over and straighten it all back up," Loyanich said. "And they would."

The next thing you know, those same people would be carrying boxes for her and organizing things they had never touched.

"She ruled that corner with an iron fist," Loyanich said.

A gifted salesperson

She said Ach was also an amazing salesperson. She knew every genre and sub-genre. She was put in charge of mass-market paperbacks.

"She often convinced people to buy a lot more books than they were expecting to," Loyanich said. "It was pretty amazing."

When the store had a big sale, Ach would be posted by whatever needed to be sold the most and rarely failed to clear out the excess inventory.

At one point, she had decided there were far too many Westerns. Loyanich said Ach thought they were getting in her way. She organized them all together for the day of the big sale and dressed up for the occasion.

"She just so happened to have a cowboy hat from one of her travels," Loyanich said. "And by gosh, she sold over 200 Westerns on the very first day."

Dedication of volunteers is not rare

Loyanich said that Ach's dedication was incredible, but not rare among their volunteers. She said Friends has about 100 volunteers, and their average age is probably in the mid-70s. Many of them are retired teachers and librarians "committed to getting books in the hands of children."

"It's amazing when you see a child come in the front door. 'Mom, can I go back? Can I go back?' " Loyanich said. "Even when they don't have a lot of money, they can leave here with books."

Just like many of the other volunteers, Ach wanted to share her love of reading. During a hospital stay in the middle of the pandemic, she brought Friends bookmarks and handed them out to the doctors and therapists. When she had to move from her house, she had her health aide bring her to the store so she could keep going through the 12,000 or so books that come into Friends each week.

"She really wanted people to come here and discover what she had discovered many years ago," Loyanich said.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Memorial donation stolen in Friends Used Bookstore burglary